Discovering You’re Pregnant on the High Seas

And probably by fall of 2009 we already started to field, “when are you having a 2nd baby?” questions from anyone and everyone. I get it – people like to ask this question whether it’s deemed socially acceptable or not. We responded to them with vague, “someday, uh huh, we’ll get back to you” answers. The truth was, we were thoroughly enjoying Lily. We knew we wanted one more kid in the future but were not in a rush. I felt like I wanted to save that precious gift of having a newborn for a few more years because it was something I cherished and wanted to be able to look forward to.

Fast forward to just before Lily’s 3rd birthday. I knew that I was more than ready for another little bean. And even though it took as almost a year to conceive Lily, for some reason I thought maybe this time would be different. Maybe it would happen a little quicker.

Fast forward another 1.5 years. Still no bun in the oven.

By this time the “doesn’t Lily want a sibling?” questions were just hurtful. They felt cruel even though I knew they weren’t meant to be. Friends and family all around me were getting pregnant and having babies – it was like a fertility wonderland for everyone – except me. I was starting to lose some hope, and the worst was when Lily herself would tell me how much she wished she had a brother or sister to play with.

I finally broke down and bought a box of those ovulation predictor tests, hating to spend the money on them but knowing that it would be worth it if it helped. First month, no luck. The second month the green light happened to occur in January – the week before we left for our cruise to Mexico. As I packed for our trip it dawned on me that the end of our vacation would be around the right time to take a pregnancy test… good thing I still had some in my toiletry bag from the year BEFORE when we were in Disney. It was no wonder I was getting restless – this really was not as easy as some Lifetime Originals lead you to believe. As an afterthought, I also packed a “Big Sister” shirt for Lily – JUST in case we got the results we were desperately hoping for and JUST in case we needed to do an impromptu photo session to surprise the grandparents with upon our return.

Our cruise was great, very enjoyable, lots of memories. On Friday, we had two days before we returned to Miami to disembark. Lily had become borderline obsessed with the kids’ club on board the ship and asked every night to be dropped off for camp activities. That night we decided to grant her wish and drop her off for dinner and some play time afterwards. We planned to enjoy a nice quiet dinner-for-two but thanks to Bob’s sudden onset of seasickness, weren’t sure if that was going to happen. He took a trip down to the medical center and scored some Dramamine before depositing Lily at Camp Carnival for the evening.

I was supposed to be showering while he took Lily to her dinner – but I figured this was as good a time as any to take that almighty test. I had taken enough tests that came out negative, what was one more? At least I was still on vacation and could throw back an adult beverage or two if I got the usual results.

My first test was one of those dollar store-esque pee dipsticks. You know – the ones that leave so much room for interpretation and investigation? The ones that have me holding them up to the light, squinting through one eye or looking at them with a flashlight to see if maybe, JUST MAYBE, there is a second line. Like I said, I have taken enough of these to know when they are negative. But this time was different. It wasn’t much, but there was SOMETHING there, right where that second line was supposed to appear.

But was it ENOUGH evidence to bring out the big guns? I had ONE digital test and those puppies are like GOLD. You pee, an hour glass appears, then BOOM – in black and white, you read your fate. Let’s not forget the fact that I was roughly 1,000 miles from the closest CVS – so I literally had one shot. I took another look at the first test and decided it was promising enough to risk it.

And then this happened.

And then I had to decide if I should tell my seasick husband right away or if I should try to wait until he was feeling better. When I realized how much I was shaking and that I could not put a coherent sentence together, I figured sooner was probably better than later.

So then this happened:

And then the next day, this happened (though I should note – we did NOT tell Lily the big news right away. We waited until after our first ultrasound. So when we gave her this shirt, we told her that it said “Big GIRL.” As you can see, she was pretty darn excited. LOL!!)

Then we gave her a blank piece of paper to hold which I Photoshopped later with the announcement details –

So obviously I never did get my alcoholic drink that night – and it will be a long wait until I finally do get to enjoy it. But that’s more than okay with me. I was only too happy to return from vacation with a teeny tiny stowaway. 🙂

I loved your story. I felt like my daughter was just born and they had just finished stitching me up (I had a c-section) that people were already asking me when I was going to pop out another one and then people told me when Anna turn 1 on that she needed a little sibling. We wanted to wait until she was at least 2 before an extra kid arrived. We ended up having a miscarriage with our 2nd child and people still told me she needed a little sibling. It was so hard. This July Anna will be a big sister to a little brother. People don’t realize what they are asking/telling when talking to a couple who is having trouble getting pregnant and/or not ready to reproduce. Thank you for telling your journey to a 2nd child. You have quite the little story to tell your little guy when he’s older 🙂

Devon

Thank you so much for your kind words – and thank you for sharing YOUR story! Congrats on your upcoming arrival – how exciting!!

Amanda Thew

Love the video! You obviously know how similar our stories are, so it made me teary watching Bob’s reaction.

Now get ready to field questions on if you’ll have more OR the wonderful, “You’re set now since you have one boy and one girl.”